Middle East

Rajhi Steel Industries turns out more than one million tons of steel products each year; but the round figure keeps cropping up, as commercial vice president Abdul Aziz Al-Hudaib explains.

As April draws to a close, the world’s major oil companies are coming out with their first quarter results for 2011, with ConocoPhillips, BP, EXXON and Shell all reporting this week.

Reporting yesterday, the third largest US oil company ConocoPhillips reported a 43 per cent year-on-year rise in quarterly earnings to $3 billion, but said it was disappointed not to have achieved its production and refining targets.

Toronto-based Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner, is building up its copper portfolio with an agreement to acquire copper producer Equinox Minerals.

Equinox has two primary assets, the Lumwana mine in Zambia (100 per cent owned) and the Jabal Sayid development project in Saudi Arabia (70 per cent owned, but Equinox is in the process of acquiring the remaining 30 per cent).

With the global drive towards self-sufficiency picking up pace, Jeff Daniels looks at the efforts being made in Abu Dhabi to become self-reliant in reinforcing steel production.

For years now, Abu Dhabi has been the sand-pit for the world’s biggest names in architecture. There can’t be many other places on earth that can boast the variety and quantity of groundbreaking buildings as this Middle Eastern city. Look at the architectural magazines and it could be that even more wild and wonderful designs are yet to come.

When the Canadian/Australian minerals company Equinox Minerals Limited ventured into Saudi Arabia, it knew little about the region. Just a few months on it’s becoming clear that it made the right decision, though, as Robert Rigo, vice president of project development, told John O’Hanlon.

Having pioneered modern mining in Oman, the government-owned Oman Mining Company (OMCO) is on the threshold of developing a lucrative new copper resource. Ali Waily talks to Gay Sutton about fast tracking the project and protecting the aquifers in an area where water is precious.

WS Atkins, the UK-based engineering consultancy, has revealed that a pick-up in construction activity in the Middle East contributed to its strong fourth quarter results.

In a trading statement yesterday, the company said that it now anticipates results for the year ending 31 March 2011 to be ahead of current market expectations.

The company said: “The Group's operations in the Middle East have benefited from increasing activity in the second half of the year, together with further recovery of client payments against which we had previously provided.”